


Scars

by flute25



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Existential Angst, Gen, PLEASE HEED WARNINGS FOR CHAPTER 7, Whumptober, as always, more tags to come, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26864239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flute25/pseuds/flute25
Summary: Whumptober shorts from over the years...
Relationships: Dooku & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dooku & Qui-Gon Jinn, Dooku & Yoda (Star Wars), Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rael Averross & Dooku
Comments: 25
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An RotS AU...
> 
> Whumptober 2020
> 
> Prompt: "waking up shackled"

_**dong, dong, dong** _ **, the gaffi sleep at dawn**

Awareness snuck through the dark, heavy curtain of oblivion, languorous in its golden trickles, seeping into small rips and tears - imperfections only now realized, marring that perfect expanse of _nothing_ \- no feelings, no pain, no _loss._ Anakin felt the tiny, electric tributaries emptying their loads in his cells, in his skin, his burgeoning thoughts, all pooling in the infinite variety of cracks and crevices like molten _wupiupi._

They’d take the old coins sometimes - currency not even the Hutts would honor - and melt it down into various moulds, all kinds of shapes and sizes. Droid parts, usually, and more than once Anakin had gotten a decent joint or even a full set of processors from the process.

He remembered the way the pieces of metal clanged together in his rucksack, a chaotic jumble of mechanical melody. Some days, he liked to think each song was especially made for him.

Anakin stretched his arm, frowning at the sudden, familiar sound.

**_clang, clang, clang_ , the catina song’s been sang**

The sound of metal on metal wasn’t an unfamiliar one on Tatooine, and even less so in the markets of Mos Espa or certainly the bowels of Watto’s shop, filled to the brim with a million-piece orchestra of hydrospanners and capacitors and signal receivers. Anakin knew them all, knew each song as a set of stabilizers hung from an old, warped astromech dome, swaying gently in the early morning breeze.

Anakin reached for the Force, extending his other arm out of habit. But something was wrong, the jangling from before becoming more pronounced, the feeling of weightlessness, of _emptiness_ somehow heavy on his chest.

**_jingle, jingle, jingle_ , the shops lay out their shingles**

It almost sounded like the wind chimes hung in the entrance of Watto’s shop, a motley collection of rusted winches and shears that were beyond use even as scrap metal. Watto was the furthest thing from a Hutt - physically, at least - but like all shop owners on Tatooine, he kept the chimes in a prominent place near the front of the store. Deference to the Hutt syndicates who ruled Mos Espa, who once ruled every aspect of Anakin’s existence.

His mother had told him the chimes were a sign of renewal in Hutt society, something about their ancient homeworld on Varl, which had been destroyed millennia previous. He hadn’t given it much thought at the time, but years later, as Anakin had lied in the healer’s quarters, medical droids molding skin with metal and wire, the clanging of their joints and machines whisking him away from the horrors of Geonosis back to the safe embrace of Shmi - then yes, renewal made sense. After all, Hutts were as capable of regenerating their own body parts as they were taking away those of their enemies.

Anakin pulled on his arm again, the strange metallic sound growing louder, more insistent with his movements.

_**screech, screech, screech** _ **, the modulator has no speech**

Later, when he made friends with other slave kids, when he began to pod race, when the Hutts were something _more_ than the menacing shadows creeping up from beneath his bed - later, when he learned the rhymes and children’s songs meant to entertain and keep wayward sons and daughters from their Master’s wrath - later, Anakin learned the truth of the wind chimes.

Anakin opened his eyes, lashes slowly pulling apart from one another, as if they had glued together by tar. He tugged his arm again, drawing his gaze to the source of the sickening sound.

_**ring, ring, ring** _ **, the Hutts have tied it up with string**

Maybe at one time, the Hutts had seen the wind chimes as a source of something spiritual, that they were truly a kind of commemoration, a memento of their forgotten home. But as everything with the Hutts, whatever original meaning had bloated and decayed into greed and malevolence.

The wind chimes did not sing a hymn to the past anymore, but rather a discordant anti-melody to the future. Droids - tortured, executed, and dismembered - not always in that order - their hanging parts screaming a warning of what happened to those who crossed the Hutts.

**_chime, chime, chime_ \- you droids didn’t get out on time!**

Anakin stared at the chain shackling his arm to the far wall, the light, almost cheerful ringing an inhuman screech between his ears, the aftershocks echoing with hate, fear, and anguish. He pulled on his other arm, his right leg, then his left, molten rage billowing from the last cracks of pitch-black serenity.

But there was no music, no song of renewal, not even the satisfaction of a threat expressed as cacophony.

There was nothing at all, Anakin realized with horror, taking in the sight of his limbless form.

_A warning of what happened to those who crossed the Hutts, who would just as soon chop off a limb as regenerate their own. Renewal in the form of metal and wire. A song written just for him._

But by whom?

A rustle of fabric, the tentative tread of bootsteps. A moment later, Obi-wan crossed the threshold of the door, eyes sunken and red, ash and fire scarring his tunics.

 _Mustafar_ , Anakin remembered with a sickening trill in his chest.

“What did you _do_ , Obi-wan?” His voice broke, a rusted modulator, over the name of his betrayer.

Obi-wan bit his lip, crossing his arms, coming no further towards Anakin. He bowed his head, voice rough and crackling when he finally spoke to the floor.

“I am so sorry, Anakin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I made up a shitty Tatooine children's rhyme specifically for this story...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My take on the trolley problem, in the GFFA  
> Whumptober 2020
> 
> prompt: "pick who dies"

_**(excerpt from “The Padawan’s Guide to Philosophy.” Eds. Masters Thrife-Foran & Ugaaalich. 616th e. Coruscant, 940 ARR. Holobook.)** _

_**Premise:** _

_You are out for an afternoon walk in the outer regions of Thymilla, a moderately-populated city on the planet Ungar. On your walk, you pass by a set of hovertrain tracks, which branch into two separate arms - one an extension of the main track, the other a smaller offshoot which leads to a cargo loading zone, about fifty clicks south of where you are. (Diagram 3)_

_As a hovertrain approaches from the north, you hear screaming, the words of the driver becoming clearer as the hovertrain barrels towards the switch. The brakes of the train have failed and there is no chance of repair. If the train continues on its current path, it will kill five workers making repairs on the track. If you pull a switch, the hovertrain will divert to the offshoot, where it will kill one worker at the cargo loading zone._

_Because of an anomaly in Ungar’s atmosphere, you cannot access the Force._

_Do you pull the switch or do nothing and allow the train to speed forward?_

_**~~~~~~~** _

“Your thoughts, Padawan.”

Dooku shifted on his meditation pod, the firm material groaning as he uncrossed his legs from the lotus position, gingerly setting both his bare feet to the cool, tiled floor of his Master’s chambers. The young man allowed himself a small wince with the action. Yoda might have been able to keep that damnable position for hours, probably days on end, but Dooku was just a few months shy of his eighteenth life day, and another recent growth spurt seemingly focused all on his legs made sitting for any long amount of time…uncomfortable, to say the least.

Which was likely why Yoda had had him trapped him here for the past three hours, running through one ethical thought experiment after the other, poking his literal and metaphorical gimmer stick precisely at each gnarled and swollen joint in both his body and thoughts.

To act - to pull the switch - would mean to commit premeditated murder, even if it were for the greater good. Hardly a Jedi-like action. But then again, they had been taught - indoctrinated, really - with the idea that is was acceptable to sacrifice one life for the lives of many. A supposedly fair trade-off, although Dooku had seen enough of the Jedi’s relationship to the Senate, had seen enough of the Council’s internal politics, to know that two lives did not necessarily hold equal weight.

But to not act - to let the train barrel through, to leave it up to the will of the Force…Dooku clenched his teeth. _That_ seemed more in line with the Order he was coming to know, was consistent with the Council’s lack of action on Protobranch, when Sifo-Diyas had _seen_ the calamity that was to befall the planet and yet the Council, his Master, had done too little, too late, preferring to allow events to transpire as they would, the Jedi only impassive bystanders.

What was the point of their abilities, their training, their place in the universe, if they weren’t able to change the course of events for the better?

“I suppose,” Dooku began slowly, coming to stand, suddenly not caring if he was maintaining his proper meditation position. The young man padded towards the slightly shuttered windows on the other side of the room.

“I suppose it depends on the relative worth of each life,” he said, turning away from Yoda as to not see the subtle moue of distaste Dooku was certain would cross the old Master’s face.

“Is not all life sacred, Padawan?”

Dooku barely bit back the dark chuckle threatening to escape from his chest. Only in the holos and classrooms and the empty rhetoric of the Council was all life sacred. The Jedi could do so much more, _he_ could do so much more to change the galaxy and yet the Order allowed itself to be chained to politicians, leashed like _akk-dogs_ until receiving command.

 _No_ , Dooku thought. There was no balance - not here and not in the Force.

“From the information you’ve provided,” Dooku said, ignoring Yoda’s question. He peered through the slits of the rotor blinds into the watery illumination of Coruscant’s night sky. The dome of the Senate building rose through the rain like an oddly-shaped umbrella, shielding those in power with its wide beadth. “We can assume both parties of victims are of equal social standing, being manual laborers. Because of this, we must find other ways of determining their worth, their ability to enact change in the galaxy.”

Dooku clasped his hands behind his back, daring to turn to face his Master’s displeasure.

“The question becomes whether you want to hold sway over the transit network of a forgettable city, or the imports and exports that may go off-world. Exports which might include valuable resources or even smuggled goods. Items which could affect the governance of our imagined city and therefore, by extension, an even larger part of the populace.”

“Which is why, in this case,” Dooku concluded, his posture straightening, “I would choose to allow the hovertrain to continue its course and save the cargo worker.”

Yoda folded both claws over his gimmer stick, frowning. After a moment, he let out a small grunt, his features now inscrutable.

“And see yourself as the final arbiter of worth, do you, my young apprentice? Stand you above all others holding a golden scale, you do?”

 _Don’t we, as Jedi, hold these scales every day and yet choose to ignore them?_ Dooku thought.

“Someone,” the young man replied, “will make the judgment regardless. Is it not better for the Jedi to use our powers to make such decisions?”

This time Yoda did let out a wet sigh, shaking his head.

“Dangerous, these thoughts are, my Padawan,” Yoda grumbled, gesturing at the meditation pod. “Sit, young Dooku. Much we have to discuss.”

**~~~~~~~**

“Your thoughts, Rael.”

Rael Averross slung an arm over the back of Dooku’s couch, sleeves of his Master’s borrowed robe hanging long near the tips of his fingers. It had been the third time that month Rael had “misplaced” his own robe, his Master’s foisted upon him in the wee hours of the morning, Dooku grunting something about “Jedi propriety” before shoving Rael out the door. (The things were a damned inconvenience, and made him look like something straight out of a space station ghost story, to boot. Was it so surprising he showed up to Dooku’s quarters in a state which his Master referred to as “ _half-naked?_ ”)

Rael bit his lip, trying to not think of all the times he had actually _been_ half-naked in the Temple. _Those_ were fun times. Unfortunately, Dooku could probably mind read them out of him right now if he weren’t so concentrated on this thought experiment.

“Why not save them both?” Rael drawled amiably, scratching at the beginnings of a beard with his other hand as he hoped to distract his Master from any hint of his past indiscretions. It was about time, too, he thought. _Never going to look my age going around all smooth-faced like a transparisteel window surface._

Dooku gave a small smile. “You cannot, Rael. Those are the rules of the scenario.”

“ _Rules_ ,” Rael scoffed, picking at the hem of Dooku’s overly-fancy robe before suddenly launching to his feet, unable to contain his restlessness. The younger Jedi paced up and down the length of Dooku’s couch, grateful his usually strict Master was allowing him this indulgence. Not that _Dooku_ had any problem sitting still for what felt like forever - _stiff as a board, that one_ \- but Rael was too jittery, too full potential energy to keep his thoughts in neat line with his body. “Rules are meant to be _broken_ , Master,” Rael gave a swift chop with his hand in illustration. “You’re the first one to tell me that.”

Rael heard his Master let out a soft snort in response. Only Dooku could make such a noise sound _dignified._ “I suppose I did,” the older man answered evenly.

“So there you go! Blow up the train and everyone’s fine.”

“And kill the driver?”

Rael spun to face Dooku, the other man’s eyebrows raised not in condemnation, but genuine interest. It was days like this Rael truly appreciated having Dooku as a Master. Sure, he was as pretentious as any big-city Senator, a hard taskmaster in his lessons, and an even tougher dueling trainer - but at the end of the day, Dooku only expected Rael to follow _Dooku’s_ rules, and not the Order’s.

And as much as Rael chaffed under any collar, he’d take Dooku’s version of the Code over the Council’s any day.

“I mean, the driver _is_ the one in control of the train,” Rael shrugged. “Sure, it’s an accident, but the they were going to be dead either way once they hit those other bodies. Probably would go flying through the window and bash their skull in. This way, you save six lives,” Rael gave his best used speeder salesman grin. “Buy five, get one free.”

That little addition _did_ cause his Master to roll his eyes.

“You are…” Dooku pressed his lips together, sitting back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. It was as close as Dooku ever got to a casual posture. “Colorful rhetoric aside, you are essentially advocating for pre-emptive action. Very interesting, Rael.”

“Interesting as in,” Rael pulled a sour face, imitating Dooku’s proper Serennian accent, “‘ _And now I will assign you five Jedi moral precepts to memorize and write a five-page essay about’_ or interesting as in _‘I will now have you learn the complete codified law of the Umbargans, whose entire military strategy revolved around non-preemptive attacks.”_

Dooku chuckled - actually _chuckled_ \- at Rael’s minor impertinent outburst. “Neither, Rael. Although, I must say you have provided me the perfect means by which I may punish you later on.” _Damn,_ d _ug my own grave with that one,_ thought Rael. 

“No,” Dooku continued, “I merely find your stance on this matter to be refreshingly…original.”

“You mean the Council wouldn’t approve?”

It took his Master a full minute to answer, his gaze shifting beyond Rael, beyond the confines of their shared quarters, Dooku seeming lost in some memory.

“Hardly,” he finally said. “And that is for the best.”

**~~~~~~~**

“Your thoughts, Padawan?”

Qui-gon Jinn sat motionless on the small patch of grass, listening to the susurrations of the light breeze in the Room of a Thousand Fountains finger through a nearby thicket of Borto reeds. Across from him, Master Dooku sat in a mirrored pose, long legs crossed over the other in the lotus position, expression unreadable, his presence in the Force - or, his effect on the Force presence on the vegetation around him - one of controlled expectancy, a single blade of grass erect and ready despite the buffeting winds.

“We shouldn’t have to choose, Master,” Qui-gon replied, trying to steady his own uneven thoughts and emotions. Although he had been Dooku’s Padawan for almost five years now, Qui-gon still found himself worrying his responses to thought experiments like these would not pass his Master’s high and stringent intellectual standards.

“In an ideal world, Qui-gon, we wouldn’t. But as you have learned - as I have shown you - the status quo rarely measures up to our ideals.”

 _The status quo_ , Qui-gon thought. Code for the Senate, for the Council, for the Republic at large. That much he had figured out, had learned from Rael, whose ability to translate Dooku’s sometimes opaque rhetoric to something more digestible never ceased to amaze Qui-gon.

 _The status quo._ The more years he spent with Dooku - with Rael, when the younger man was around - the more Qui-gon _understood._ Perhaps he always had a predilection to question, to challenge what was “known,” the dictums etched in stone handed down from the Council to the Council’s Masters to its Padawans. But with Dooku’s guidance, and with his own exploration of the Jedi prophecies, Qui-gon had developed his own sense of right and wrong, of how the galaxy _ought_ to work in consonance with the ideals of the Jedi Code and his own moral compass.

“In that case, I would ask the Force for guidance,” Qui-gon replied, thoughts slipping back to the many hours he had spent in the Archives, poring over ancient holocrons. The Force had provided for the seers of old, why shouldn’t it provide now?

“Perhaps the Force cannot provide all the answers,” Dooku countered, as if reading his mind.

Qui-gon frowned, tilting his head. “Is that not what the Jedi teach, Master? What _you_ teach? To follow the Force?”

“To a degree,” Dooku assented, rare amusement curling the side of his lips. “But the Jedi work in symbiosis with the Force, and even that is within a certain self-imposed definition of what the Force may or may not be capable of.”

 _Self-imposed definition?_ Qui-gon ran his hands through the soft grass at his sides, no longer able to keep that perfect stillness now that Dooku had so upset his equilibrium. Had his study of the prophecies not proven that exact point? That the Jedi of _now_ no longer regarded the Force with as open a mind those of millennia ago?

“The Force _is_ more infinite, has more potentialities than the confines of what we could possibly hope to study in a thousand lifetimes,” Qui-gon hedged.

“And so you hope to use prophecy to save these doomed beings?” Dooku retorted with a small wave of his hand. _Ah yes, the hovertrain problem_ , Qui-gon grimaced. He had almost quite forgotten about the whole reason for this conversation.

“I would hope to…” Qui-gon cocked his head, watching a pair of butterflies flutter over a _Byrsonima crassifolia_ , fragile leaves fluttering in their wake. An action - or a lack of action. If he saved one life or saved five. What would the repercussions be? How could he know he was making the right choice? How could the Order know, if not for guidance from the Force, in all its possible iterations?

And yet, the study prophecy of was considered at best, an esoteric hobby - at worst, a dangerous arm of mysticism by much of the Council.

 _Which is why your Master encourages you to think beyond the dictates of the Council_ , Qui-gon concluded.

“Yes, then,” Qui-gon stated, suddenly more confident in his answers. “I would hope to ameliorate the situation by using a similar mindset of the prophets. One of openness, wonder, and possibility - to find my way in this situation.”

“And just how far would you be willing to take supposed,” Dooku trained him with an enigmatic expression, “ _openness?_ ” The word weighed heavy with implication.

Qui-gon started. _What exactly is Dooku trying to get at here?_ Hadn’t it been his Master who had introduced him to the prophecies, to the Force beyond the dictates of the Code? So far, Dooku had not steered him wrong, and yet just as the nearby _Byrsonima crassifolia_ cast a long shadow over the open grass, so did Dooku’s unspoken entreaty.

But before Qui-gon could cobble together an answer, Dooku seemed to break out of his trance, chuckling slightly as he got to his feet. He extended a long arm to Qui-gon, who took it without hesitation, coming to stand at his Master’s side.

“Meditate on the answer, Qui-gon. For now, I believe it is past time for dinner.”

**~~~~~~~**

“Your thoughts, Padawan.”

Obi-wan Kenobi shifted in the overly-large, overly-plush velvet chair which threatened to swallow him whole. He and Qui-gon had been dispatched to Barstovia, a little-known desert mining planet in the Mid-Rim. A simple mission, really, overseeing a trade deal between Barstovia and Ord Mantell, opening up some shipping lines of the rare _fermenium_ mineral to the Republic. A wholly forgettable mission, if Obi-wan were being honest, except for the fact the diminutive race of Barstovia seemed to prize, of all the unlikely things, oversized, over-upholstered furniture.

While Obi-wan struggled with a crimson throw pillow the size of his torso, his master, Qui-gon Jinn, sat across from him, perfectly serene in his eight-foot tall, royal blue armchair.

“Well, Master,” Obi-wan said, words strained as he punched the pillow to his side with un-Jedi-like ferocity. Of all times for Qui-gon to pull out a thought experiment.

“The prevailing wisdom would say to sacrifice one life to save five - a utilitarian outlook and the most practical, at least on the surface.” Obi-wan pushed down on the seat of his chair, trying in vain to straighten his posture, to lend his answer _some_ form of credence beyond his words. Inevitably, Qui-gon would hold the exact opposite opinion from Obi-wan’s, and while Obi-wan had often kept his feelings to himself under the guise of “picking his battles,” he preferred to express his thoughts while at least _looking_ the part of an almost eighteen-year-old Padawan, and not some child stuck in a chair too large for him. He struck at the recalcitrant cushion one last time. “But as Jedi, we often prioritize a single being or beings if they hold an important role.” 

“In the short-term,” Obi-wan grimaced suddenly, pulling an impossible _second_ pillow from under his right thigh, “we would lose four lives over one, granted. But in the long-term, that single life lost might mean the eventual deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands.”

“But you do not have this information, Padawan,” Qui-gon replied, a crease of annoyance in his brow. Obi-wan noted there was no accompanying crease in the cushion of his Master’s chair. “All you know is the number of beings.”

Obi-wan bit down on a caustic reply. _Yes, I know that, Master. I hadn’t gotten to my point yet._ But when did Qui-gon _actually_ ever listen to him?

“Yes, Master, this is true,” the younger Jedi answered, Obi-wan impressed with the evenness of his own response despite his increasing irritation. “Which is why I would endeavor to save them all.”

A beat. a raised eyebrow coupled with a subtle sigh. “Quite the feat, Obi-wan,” Qui-gon finally said, his words laced with skepticism. “How would you accomplish such a thing?”

 _How in the world is he not drowning in that chair?_ Obi-wan thought, distracted by his Master’s impenetrability, despite the audacious situation. There was Qui-gon, halfway across the room, composed and neat - well, as neat as Qui-gon ever got - against the regal backdrop of the humorously-sized chair while Obi-wan floundered in a sea of crimson, just out of his Master’s reach.

And wasn’t that the perfect metaphor for their troubled partnership?

Obi-wan wiped at his brow. “It’s quite simple, Master. The hovertrain could be diverted, or at least impeded by a third party inserting themselves into the equation.”

Something in Qui-gon’s expression shifted at the statement, earlier annoyance now melting into something closer to concern. The older man leaned forward in his chair, for the first time exhibiting a pang of discomfort as he battled the voluminous material.

“And who might that be?” Qui-gon asked, batting at the tsunami of beige woven blanket at his side.

“Myself, of course.”

Dead silence met Obi-wan’s words.

 _Wrong answer, Kenobi. Absolutely the wrong answer._ Disappointment was written all over Qui-gon’s body language, even emanating from his usually controlled Force signature. Obi-wan fell back into the chair, not bothering to fight the dunes and valleys of velvet threatening to overtake him, averting his gaze to some preposterously-sized side-table and vase. Hopefully, his failure to provide the correct response would be the end of this increasingly uncomfortable conversation. Qui-gon would assign him some reading and meditation, and let the matter rest until they returned to Coruscant.

But Qui-gon only peered at Obi-wan with a piercing stare, apparently not ready to give up on the exchange.

“You would sacrifice yourself to save the others?”

Obi-wan found himself mirroring his master’s movements.

“Isn’t that what it means to be a Jedi?” he asked, genuinely perplexed. “We are servants of the Republic, of the Force - if our actions can save lives so that Republic may continue in peace - “ Obi-wan’s mouth opened and closed, trying to form the words that would express his devotion to the Order, the Code, his own sense of honor - but found himself gaping like an Ithorian cuttlefish.

Once again, Qui-gon fell into contemplation, back arching against tall, bulbous pillows, brushing his mustache with a single finger. A minute, then two went by, the only sound the _clicks_ of a nearby chrono. Over eighteen feet tall, the clicks sounded more like the steps of a lurking gundark than a timepiece, doing nothing for Obi-wan’s nerves.

Finally, Qui-gon broke the uncomfortable semi-silence. “Don’t be so hasty to throw away your own life, Padawan. As you rightly said, the death of a monarch may cause the deaths of many others down the road. But you cannot know how many lives would remain unsaved if you were to treat your own so lightly.”

Obi-wan’s eyebrows rose. _That_ had not been the reaction he was expecting.

“But how am I to know when that sacrifice is necessary?” he asked automatically. Obi-wan would make that sacrifice gladly, although…to be perfectly honest, he would prefer _not_ to die as a seventeen-year-old Padawan. 

“The better question is how you can work to reach a more productive option rather than coming to such a dire conclusion.” Qui-gon’s voice softened. “I am serious, Obi-wan. You have much to offer the galaxy. Don’t let your strict adherence to Jedi ideals extinguish your star too early. Not only would the Republic be at a loss, but…” Qui-gon looked away, staring down at some invisible pattern in the corner of the room. “I would, as well.”

Obi-wan’s mouth dropped open. “Master, I - “

“Ah, Master Jedi!” A new voice squeaked from the gargantuan entranceway. “Thank you so much for waiting,” proclaimed the three-foot Minister of Commerce, Parhary Hatch, bedecked in a long, flowery robe whose velvet train stretched back several feet. “Please, if you would,” he gestured towards the tall archway.

“Yes, of course, Minister Hatch,” Qui-gon replied in his diplomatic voice, jumping neatly off the chair, his landing as elegant as a Coruscanti ice skater.

Obi-wan frowned, joining his Master in a slightly less dignified, but no less effective maneuver. They had been on the verge of…something, some kind of understanding, or at least a truce. Whatever words had remained unsaid between would likely stay so, the moment gone, the trip back to Coruscant, and then to a Hutt outpost taking priority over these types of conversations.

 _Another time, then_ , Obi-wan sighed to himself, following the slinking violet trail of the Bartovian minister and his Master into the long corridors of the palace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was actually too fun


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whumptober 2020
> 
> prompt: "on their knees"

“Body language is a most fascinating study, is it not? A twitch of the lip, the glean in one’s eye - entire holonovels could be written in these small, subtle gestures alone, the truth of a being highlighted in the curvature of the back, or the contractions of certain muscles. And if something as seemingly meaningless as a furrowed brow can hold an author’s entire _oeuvre_ , imagine then, how many hundreds - thousands - of libraries could be filled with a more overt gesture, such as the crossing of arms, a handshake, or even…” the sonorous voice trailed off, a wicked melody hidden behind the next word. 

“ _Kneeling._ ”

“But even within the obvious,” the man continued, “there lie crucial details, much like the fine stitching found in a set of Rybataan bedsheets or the careful brushstrokes of the Rodian holopainting masters of the First Age. Small details within the details…but you would know about that, would you not, my apprentice? The small cracks in the Force, the eddies and waves, the building tsunamis that lie within?” The man chuckled. “Yes, of course, you do. That is why you are here, on your knees.”

“Kneeling. An act of deference to races such as the Tribaldi, who make the body smaller, curling their heads into their gargantuan, swollen bellies to show their humility when faced with the faraway stars their religion insists they were truly born of before coming into their corporeal form.“

“To others, this is merely the mark of the subservient - of slaves and servants and students and even mere citizenry when approached by their betters. An obligation of the one who must prostrate in front of the other, acknowledging with the body what the mind may not yet accept - that you are not wholly in control of your own destiny.”

“And yet in many cultures, such as the Ongori or the Thalmen, bereavement of a loved one, a celebrity, or even one’s former _allegiances,_ ” the man enunciated every syllable, drew out every diphthong of the word. “This mourning takes the form of falling to one’s knees. The Zzyxz, in fact, expect this of their people, many a poisoned partner or accident-prone politician being mourned _en masse_ in this way by well-paid, well-documented professional grievers when the extant family is not…” And here the man hummed in soft irony, “ _capable_ of seeing this exit as any true loss.”

“And you, Master Kenobi, who in this very moment pays me the same obeisance - “ Count Dooku laid a single hand atop the younger man’s head, curling his fingers into Obi-wan’s hair in a crimson benediction of the damned. 

“Tell me, Obi-wan, what does it mean to kneel at the feet of your new Master?”

Obi-wan Kenobi raised his head, meeting Dooku’s gaze with sunken, yellow-rimmed eyes. The younger man’s lips curled into a broken smile.

_"Freedom.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A ghost story  
> Whumptober 2020
> 
> prompt: "buried alive"

_There was once a young girl. Now, there have been many young girls in the history of the galaxy - some good, some bad. Some extraordinary, others quite ordinary. You may ask, what about this girl? What was her moral character? What accomplishments did she bring to this galaxy? Was she a princess or a servant? Was she kind to loth cats, did she listen to her parents, do well in school?_

_We do not know._

_And so this girl’s existence should seem of no particular import._

_One day, this young girl was walking with her mother by the long grey sea, which watched with infinite eyes, its wet vision stretched long beyond the horizon until it seemed to curve back up again, threatening to swallow the girl whole._

_The girl shivered and pulled her silken, brown robe closer to her shoulders._

_“What seems to be wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, laying a bony, frail hand on her shoulder._

_“I’m cold, mother,” she whimpered, hugging her small arms around her waist._

_“Then take my cloak,” her mother answered, wrapping the young girl in a wooly, brown fabric that seemed to eat up her from head to toe. “And let us go to the city where it is warmer.”_

_And so the young girl and her mother traveled to the city, skyscrapers rising high into the faraway, busy latticework of speeders and hovertrains, their shadows cast long and dark on the pavement below._

_The girl held a hand to her chest, panting. The wooly cloak tightening its embrace of her small body._

_“What seems to be wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, face half-shrouded in dirty shadow._

_“Mother, I cannot breathe,” she gasped, feeling as if the buildings themselves were leaning forward, looming high in the night sky, suffocating the stars and the moon, the light poles and illumination banks. They tilted with silent malice, meaning to trod over the girl’s stomach, her legs, her chest._

_“Then let us stop at the store and buy satchel of healing plant,” her mother answered sweetly, unbothered by the malignant angle of the Galactic Bank, or sinister void staring from the unlit windows of the planetary library, her dark-veined hand rubbing against the girl’s back._

_And so the girl and her mother traveled to the store, tall, skinny silhouettes of metal and duracrete trailing their every step._

_As the girl munched on the sticky, wet leaves of a yurma healing plant, she wrinkled her nose._

_“What seems to be wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, head turned towards the long line of empty vendors, their wicker baskets boasting air and shadow and absence, tables empty but for the folded, wrinkled signs written in messy Aurebesh. “Nothing for sale. One hundred credits, O.B.O.”_

_“Mother, this block smells of decay and rot.”_

_The girl’s mother spoke, her head still turned towards the empty alley. “Then let us find something to eat, so your tongue may overwhelm your nose.”_

_And so the girl and her mother traveled to the diner, windows thick with greasy curlicues which seemed to bend on forever._

_“Mother, this food tastes of dirt and slime!” the girl exclaimed, her fork clattering on the surface of the table, her vegetables, a pile of sickly brown and green misshapen lumps, forgotten._

_“Then let us go to the park and listen to the band, so your ears may settle your tongue,” her mother answered from behind, her shadow stretching long and dark over the girl so she could not see small, pearly maggots burrowing their way through the stretched skin of her broccoli, mouths wet and hungry._

_And so the girl and her mother traveled to the park, laying on the damp, cool grass as the band raised their instruments, the conductor’s hammer coming down with a thud as metal bows screeched against metal strings, as flutes of bone and sinew pierced the veil of the night, as drums stitched from the skins of a hundred species beat out a heartbeat long since stopped._

_The girl covered her ears with her hands._

_“Mother, I cannot hear the band!”_

_But there was no answer from mother, no words of comfort to be heard over the roar inside the girl’s head._

_“Mother, I cannot see you, I cannot see anything!”_

_For there was only the darkness, the crushing weight of shadow and earth and moisture leaking into her bones and silvery worms crawling up her nose burrowing into her mouth and she reached out her hand to grasp at her mother’s - at Death’s black heart, a thousand cerulean eyes staring back at her, long-fingered veins reaching forward -_

“That’s, at least, how the story was relayed to me, Jenza, by the people of Nodoari,” Dooku explained to the phantom of his sister. “You might find it amusing - or perhaps morbid - that they bury their dead, but not quite at the moment of death. Rather, they inter their elderly, their sick, their injured at the brink of existence and non-existence.”

Dooku tried to give a tight smile, his chest heaving in rapid undulations, tongue wrapped around dirt and moss and decay. It wouldn’t be long now, he knew. “The thinking goes,” he continued after a moment’s pause, “at least as I understood it, that the being will experience their best memories - or worst memories - revisit their loved ones and enemies as per their actions in life until death’s shadow greets them from the soil, their final moment preordained in its endless sight.”

Reality began to wrap inside Dooku’s mind, a flurry of bright lightsabers arcing in every direction against the imposing backdrop of Serenno’s snow-crested mountains. _Soon_ , he thought. Dooku did not believe in an afterlife, had never wholly believed in the Order’s teachings that they, as Jedi, would become one with the Force.

No, the darkness he experienced now would be his eternity.

Alone as ever.

_And yet…_

“I would hope now, Jenza, stuck beneath the earth as I am, that you would be the hand to pull me into the next realm of existence, if there were such a thing, that I would not suffer here alone - “

But the thought was left unfinished as light breached the tomb, a violent invasion of life, of existence tethered at the end of a familiar hand.

**~~~~~~**

“Come, Master,” Qui-gon rumbled, wrapping an arm around Dooku’s mud-stained waist. Dooku allowed himself to lean against his student’s shoulder, allowed himself to be guided to the nearby speeder where Qui-gon gently deposited his Master into the passenger seat.

Still breathing heavy, Dooku lolled his head to the side, regarding Qui-gon from the corner of his eye, his student’s long air flowing in the breeze and they drove back to the capital.

… _and death’s shadow took me by the hand._

Qui-gon peered to the side, frowning. After a moment’s hesitation, he squeezed his hand around Dooku’s.

_…as the solid grasp of fate’s long fingers, wrapped around my own_

Dooku glanced down at his and Qui-gon’s conjoined hands, shuddering.

“Are you alright, Master?”

… _eyes glittering with ancient constellations_

 _“_ I…” For a moment Qui-gon’s eyes multiplied, two then four then eight, until they covered his entire face, trailing down his neck, a thousand pupils staring back at him unblinking as the long veins of Qui-gon’s twisted forward.

… _the immovable moment of my death writ in an invisible script of element and earth and dust and soil made human._

“I…yes, Padawan,” Dooku muttered, patting Qui-gon’s hand as he straightened his shoulders. “I’m fine.”

Qui-gon regarded his Master with open worry, eyebrows raised, his bright cerulean irises large. Dooku peered into his student’s face, searching for his epitaph etched in pigmented _stroma_ and _epithelial cells_.

Dooku shook his head. _No._ He was master of his own fate, as his student would learn to be, as well. The future was not yet written, and Dooku’s death would be his own design.

Adjusting his soiled tunic with a series of familiar gestures that seemed to calm Qui-gon’s concern, Dooku gave a small, polite cough, breaking the tension. “Yes, Padawan,” he said, his voice regaining its usual deep authority, “I am fine, although I must thank you for the timely intervention. Now, let us return to the palace and rid ourselves of this filth. It would not do to confront the Rataraan royal family about their deception in such ragged adornments.”

Qui-gon placed a hand on Dooku’s shoulder, smiling as he steered the speeder towards the city.

As they wound their way through the countryside, through forest and hamlet, Dooku stared to the west, at the long, deep grey sea.

_And death’s shadow took me by the hand…_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another RotS AU  
> Whumptober 2020
> 
> prompt: "on the run"

If you were here, Qui-gon…

Right. If you were here you’d probably shackle me up - wrists tightly enclosed in Force-dampening binders, restraining collar around my neck. Your harsh words would be an invisible whip against my _true_ skin, your touch too soft for a monster such as I, pleading almost, far too kind than what I deserve for my crimes.

You would do all this, Qui-gon, your eyes dark with disappointment, letting no other man or soldier or droid handle me except yourself. Your failure of a Padawan trussed up like a common criminal (common? Perhaps not.), signed, sealed, and delivered personally back to Coruscant for my trial and probable execution.

And you would be right to do so, Qui-gon. So, so right. Force, part of me wishes you could swoop down right now, take me in your arms, the last friendly touch I would ever know before you placed my body on the electroguillotine’s platform to the cheers of the Senate, to the stony facades of the Jedi Council. One last bit of kindness, your hand on my cheek, before the killing blade would deliver me from my sins, before this would all just be _over._

After all, it’s not every day a member of the Jedi High Council assassinates the Chancellor of the Republic on live holofeed.

Their faces Qui-gon, the way the Force shifted like two ancient, tectonic masses, colliding as Palaptine - or should I say _Sidious_ \- fell from his lofty perch, body plunging, down, down, down until it hit the subterranean floor of the Senate chamber with a sickening, exhilarating _thud._

The similarities to my subterfuge as Rako Hardeen were not unmarked, believe me, Qui-gon. Palpatine, however, unlike myself, _continues_ to be dead, two neat holes placed through the side of his treacherous head.

I feel, perhaps, that I have forsaken myself.

But you weren’t there, Master, you didn’t watch through thin slits of wavering consciousness, of azure and crimson rainbows, of the sneaking tar of decay that oozed forth from the man who would lead - would conquer - the Republic and the Jedi. You weren’t there as your Padawan - your friend and brother, the boy you so cared for (more than myself, I can now admit). As Anakin brought the two blades together at Dooku’s neck, executioner of a death sentence signed in familiar large, looping letters - “Sheev Palpatine, Chancellor of the Republic.”

It was _him_ , Qui-gon. The Sith Lord was right _there_ , the entire time, one hand on Anakin’s shoulder, leading him to perdition.

And I did _nothing_ to stop it.

Nothing, until now.

Perhaps if I had been the one to perish on Naboo…perhaps none of this would have ever happened. But that is another world lost to another time, and the ‘here and now,’ as you would say, consists of a cold storage closet in the rear of a Rodian smuggler’s ship.

Three days I’ve been cramped in this space, my passage paid with the frozen Twi’lek guard lying at my feet, legs bent at unnatural, backward angles, the trickle of blood dripping from their nose now an ugly, improvised tattoo.

It’s cold, Qui-gon. A blessing, in some ways, as my departed friend here is unlikely to suffer the worst effects of putrefaction, but I feel even if I were to be on the sunny beaches of Scarif, I would still shiver at my own conscience.

I am tired, Qui-gon.

**~~~**

You visited me in my dreams last night, Qui-gon.

Neither the avenging angel of death nor the soft shepherd of comfort, you stood, distant, enigmatic as a Loth-Sphinx, as distant and maddening as you had been in life.

I suppose this should have come as no surprise.

 _Why?_ You asked me.

Why what, Qui-gon? Why did I kill Palpatine, why did I run, why did I make a fool’s promise to you all those years ago?

As to the last question, I believe - well, perhaps not believe, but fervently hope - you know the answer already.

To answer the others - what choice did I have? To witness what I had, to know Anakin was in thrall to this…this _thing_ , that I would never convince him of Palpatine’s true intentions, that I had lost any trust, any esteem he may have still had for me with my own betrayals -

It was all happening too fast, Qui-gon. The situation on Mandalore, the battle on Coruscant, Dooku’s death. I briefly confided in Bail Organa, the Senator from Alderaan, hinted at my actions in regards to the Mandalore situation, on the way to Coruscant. He told me in no uncertain terms that the Senate would be forced to bring down charges of insurrection, even possibly treason, once they learned of my manipulations of the GAR.

What was one more charge, on top of the others, I thought.

It…it’s better this way, Qui-gon. The Jedi, while still under suspicion, have an obvious and convenient scapegoat, a Council member gone rogue, the underground actor fanning the flames of rumors of a coup. Anakin, while unstable, is at least now out of _his_ orbit. Whether he stays in the Order or leaves, I cannot say, but I hope for his sake - and his unborn child’s - he leaves.

Don’t you see, Qui-gon? The only one who must suffer here is me and I will do so gladly.

Ah, but why not turn myself in, you ask. The deed is done, why _run_ from my actions?

The Twi’lek’s crimson lividity has given way to a more pale ochre, abdomen swollen and nauseated. While the cold has stalled this inevitable process, I must confess to being a bit wary of my companion’s stability.

One more night, and we shall reach Mandalore.

I remain here, discomfited bunkmate to the dead, while Cody and his men span the galaxy, hunting for the wayward Jedi - the turncoat, the traitor, the _aruetii_ …

But you see, Qui-gon, as the galaxy turns its eye on me, it distances its gaze from the Order, from the Council’s machinations.

If I had not acted, someone else would have - with far more dire consequences, I fear.

We spoke of it, you know. Taking over the government, stripping Palpatine of his power (and how laughable a notion that is, to strip a Sith Lord of their edged fury. Impossible to achieve without bloodshed.) It’s not that we wanted to usurp the government - even within the Council itself, there was strong dissent to even considering this notion.

Mace would have gladly fallen on his lightsaber to see justice served. As would Kit. And Plo. And possibly Master Yoda.

But their souls were clean.

Mine, on the other hand…

It’s late Qui-gon, and I fear tomorrow will be an unpleasant day.

**~~~**

You once said, Qui-gon, that upon finding a confluence of paths, there is no correct direction, that, in the end, there was only a decision, and the consequences thereof.

I find myself in such a place.

It seems the news of my actions reached Mandalore before I did, the civil war now at an uneasy pause, Maul neutered (and what does that say about me, that I could not achieve this victory when Ahsoka could? Perhaps I am too close, too near that fault line to act as she could.)

But they do not _know_ , Qui-gon, what I do. Ahsoka may look on in muted fury, Rex dipping his head as he comms Cody, his only words a soft _we have him,_ Bo-Katan radiant with indignation - _why could you have not done this before?_

Before we both lost _her_ , before Satine’s legacy was burnt to the ground, before it came to _this._

They wrap me in cords and shackles and the best Jedi restraints Mandalore has to offer, dumping me in the same containment cell as _him_ , who takes one look at my sorry state, who _knows_ what sins are written on my soul.

Maul throws back his head, and _cackles_ , the sound of a hundred broken mirrors.

They only have one, he says.

He doesn’t need to explain further.

The Mandalorian sarcophagus. We both saw it, that first on Mandalore, Satine cheeks turning pink, then red, as she explained the true purpose of the monstrous devices.

 _We would never use them now_ , she said. _There’s no need._

 _We can only hope_ , you answered.

And now, it is a question of who is the greater monster - the being born of blood and violence, or the one who accepted it into his heart.

 _He would have been his new apprentice,_ Maul drawls, with a sick smile.

 _I know_ , I answer. I do know, don’t I? Knew this entire time and yet could do nothing to stop it - until now.

_Will you accept your fate, Kenobi? Be hauled back to Coruscant in chains, your allies grinning as your head falls from the blade?_

I should. Damnit, I _should_ , Qui-gon! I am a Jedi, I do not fear death, for there is only the Force.

And yet…

**~~~**

We are leaving, Qui-gon, Maul and I. To what end, I cannot say. Do not fear for me, Master of mine. I am long corrupted, past redemption in this life, and can only hope to use my darkness for an ultimate good.

There is much to be done.

May I feel your soft hand on my cheek one more time, Qui-gon, if only in my dreams.

Please forgive me.

I am sorry.

Yours in this life and the next,

Obi-wan Kenobi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to know what Obes and Maul get up to after this


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character death  
> (Although it does happen in canon, so no _real_ surprises here.
> 
> Whumptober 2020
> 
> Prompt: "please"

The shards gleamed, emeralds and rubies a vicious monsoon round his head, sharper than anything let loose by the tumbling cumulonimbuses of Haruun Kal, those towering monsters, shaded in sickly grey, drunk on acid and dioxic _vog_.

Emerald, the color of her saber, swinging in perfectly synchrony to its complementary violet. Ruby, the shade of lip-wax she had been so fond of, smeared over her chin in bloody sacrifice in the dark underbelly of the jungle. Years later, her eyes would still flash that deep green, a thin trail of verdant ichor dripping down her cheeks.

 _Please_ , Mace called to the Force, reaching for the twisting vines that tethered him to his student, his daughter in all but name.

His hand grasped at air, their connection nothing but a frayed, fire-burnt edge.

The shards fell, their colors now wan, lost to the dark Coruscant night.

_Let her be safe, and if she cannot be safe, let her strong, and if she cannot be strong, let her actions be just._

A small piece floated nearby, all peaks and valleys. An insignificance, a small part of a greater whole, perhaps even a minuscule copy. What was that old phrase about falling?

A small outline, falling as fast as him; a young boy, a small part of a greater whole, one design, one face in the repeating pattern of thousands, of millions, head bent over a scorched Mandalorian helmet.

 _Please_ , Mace called to the Force, Master Ushruf’s reedy voice imparting the unbending rules of physics to a class of younglings.

A _ll objects free fall at the same rate regardless of their mass._

_Forgive me my sins, my righteous anger, my tarnished scales of justice._

The sound of a hundred chandeliers crashing to the ground, half a window - a window he knew all too well, a window he had gazed out year after year, considering the towering, unchanging spires of the Jedi Temple. A transparent plane the only witness to change, now shattered on the Spear of Anaxes, Core Founder of the Republic.

Transparent, yet hidden in shadow. Familiar, too familiar, day in and day out the same facade, the same face, the same view, until it no longer recognizable at all.

 _Please_ , Mace called to the Force, the memory of a fallen colleague now strewn across the Avenue of the Founders.

_May his death have been just, the killing strike clean, the boy’s soul unmarred._

A memory. The small teacup, dropped to the floor, breaking into tiny pieces. _“Gather itself up, it will not,_ ” a familiar voice croaked over the gasps of children. _“Learn from your past, you must, but what is done - mmph! - undone it_ cannot _be!”_

 ****Padawan. Fugitive. Citizen. Undone, it could not be; dropped, the teacup was, and no matter the motivation, it would not come together as it had fallen apart.

 _Please_ , Mace called to the Force.

_Let her find her balance and swap the broken pieces of petty revenge for the smooth glue of integrity._

It would soon be over.

Millions of pieces, each a memory, each one holding a silent plea to the Force as the culmination point of these years broke apart in a single decision. _Shatterpoints._ Fragments of the past, of the present, of a future eroded to sandy dust, a planet with two suns, light streaming so bright it reflected back into the high skylights of Coruscant.

 _Please_ , Mace called to the Force.

_The future is not yet writ, but a sharp-edged collage of possibility, a mirror, if you hold the strength to face yourself._

_Trust in the Force, Anakin, as we trusted in you._

All things must end, falling objects finding counterparts on the earth, only to rise again as infinitesimal grains of existence.

_The lofty mountains of Haruun Kal call to me once more._

_Please_ , Mace closed his eyes as the ground sped to meet him.

_There is no Death, there is only the Force._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first.  
> WARNINGS. PLEASE READ.
> 
> **TW: major character deaths (yes, plural), executions (yes, plural), general existential angst, racism**
> 
> This is NOT a happy story. If you are looking for a feel-good holiday distraction from 2020, you have come to the absolute wrong chapter. I know it's been a rough year. Please heed the warnings.
> 
> This was originally going to be a Whumptober fic based on the prompt "I've got you." It ended up turning into a tragedy based on the final scene of Poulenc's gorgeous (but haunting) ["Dialogue des Carmélites."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogues_of_the_Carmelites) If you are unfamiliar with this, I suggest googling the name of the opera plus ["Salve Regina."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkOK3aXzMpc) It will give you an idea of what you are getting into here. This story is essentially a reimagining of that scene, except in the GFFA.
> 
> One other note is that this story uses the proverbial kitchen-sink of writing techniques. Prose, transcript, second-person, etc. It's the first large-ish project I've had time to work on in a while, and the story seemed to lend itself to this kind of writing gym-type exercise. 
> 
> Anyway, those are all the warnings I have. See you all on the other side.

**I.**

**TD 15, 06:00 Antemeridian**

GALACTIC HOLONET…BREAKING NEWS…GALACTIC HOLONET…BREAKING NEWS

PALPATINE DEAD

SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE SHOWS JEDI ASSASSINATION OF GALACTIC LEADER

GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC ENACTS MARTIAL LAW ON CORUSCANT

Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, Sheev Palpatine is dead.

Security footage from the Chancellor’s office, provided by GAR Representative Wilhuff Tarkin, confirms reports of a Jedi assassination, carried out by Mace Windu, Saesee Tiin, Kit Fisto, and Agen Kolar, all member of the Jedi High Council and Generals of the Grand Army of the Republic. 

“At about eight postmeridian last night, Jedi Masters Windu, Tiin, Fisto, and Kolar were seen entering the office of the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic,” Tarkin said in a prepared statement. “While footage of the initial confrontation is corrupted by what we believe is a high level of electronic interference, the intact holovid clearly shows the death of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, an act undertaken by Jedi Master Windu, who impaled the Chancellor through the heart with a lightsaber.”

“With the death of the Chancellor and the attempted Jedi coup exposed, the Grand Army of the Republic has no choice but to enact martial law on Coruscant, effective immediately. Soldiers from the Grand Army of the Republic will be dispatched on levels one to hundred to ensure the safety and security of our citizens and their interests in light of these unprecedented events.”

The GAR has issued a curfew for all citizens, beginning at six postmeridian tonight. Transport and movement across the capital will be “severely limited,” and only undertaken for reasons of the “utmost importance to the continued essential activities of the capital.”

The Senate district, including the Jedi Temple, remains in full lockdown until further notice.

ANALYSIS: THE THREAT WITHIN

The assassination of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has proven the greatest threat to the Republic is not the vile Count Dooku, General Grievous, or the even hordes of battledroids marching ever closer over peaceful, Republic-aligned planets. 

The enemy, as we now know them to be, instead lay within, coils squeezing around the tall parapets of the Senate towers, those beacons of freedom and democracy, until finally showing their true colors in last night’s cowardly attack on all citizens of the Republic.

For too long have the Jedi hid in their lofty Temple, hoarding knowledge, resources, and power rightfully belonging to the Republic. For too long have the Jedi stolen our children, influenced our policies, and fought - and failed - in our righteous war against the Separatists.

Now their ambitions are laid clear. Nothing short of a total coup of the Republic (a fear whispered for many years in the long halls of the Senate), stopping short at no act less than outright political assassination of our beloved Chancellor.

While the final decision on the fate of the Order lies in capable hands of Admirals Wilhuff Tarkin and Wulff Yularen, it is the opinion of this editorial board that the Jedi Order be disbanded, their acolytes arrested, detained, and, yes, executed for their crimes against the Republic. Last night's events are a harsh, but necessary lesson. A single Jedi, it is said, can bring down a whole city. A dozen - a planet. An entire corrupt Order, it seems, can bring a pan-galactic government to the brink of total crisis.

Safety and security cannot return to our great planet while this mystical, treasonous cult is allowed to survive in any form. For the future of the Republic, we call for an end to the Jedi.

**II.**

**CD 14, 15:00 Postmeridian**

“You’re overreacting, Anakin.”

“You don’t think a plot to take over the Republic is a big deal?”

Padmé ignored the grim image of her husband in the mirror of her vanity, combing her fingers through her long, auburn hair. They stuck halfway down, tangled in _thirr-bird’s_ nests of gel, hormones, and neglect. 

_A ghost trapped in a cage of transparisteel_ , she thought, meeting her own familiar brown-eyed gaze. 

She allowed herself the moment of self-pity. Her back _hurt._ Her feet were two overripe, overgrown meiloorun and some _barve_ had been pounding a Treman drum rhythm in her head for the past two weeks.

“Anakin,” she exhaled, picking up the nearest elastic from her dresser. It was only a committee meeting, not the full Senate - it would have to do.

“Force, Palpatine _warned_ me this might happen! I just didn’t want to believe - ”

The hairbrush in Padmé’s hand clattered the floor. “ _Anakin_ ,” she repeated, swiveling around in her chair. “You’re basing this all on half a conversation you overheard on a couple of tripped up comm lines over Mandalore.”

“Master Windu said the Jedi Council had to consider removing Palpatine.”

“That doesn’t mean the Council is considering a coup,” Padmé replied, wiping her hands on the fabric of her long skirt. _But it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t consider it, either._

For a long moment, Anakin stood silent, his usually expressive face a mask of duracrete. 

“You have to tell them,” the mask finally broke. "Bring it to the Senate, warn your colleagues, warn the Chancellor!"

The tiniest of tugs at the back of Padmé's mind - an unsettling but now too-familiar pull of compulsion - sent her already-racing heart into a wild sprint. Gone were the soft, sometimes plaintive lover’s pleas and supplications, the soft bargains consummated in a stolen kiss or the trace of a thumb. No, this was an order, a command levied by General Skywalker, Jedi Knight and Soldier of the Republic.

_You have to tell him_ , her treasonous mind echoed. _Tell him you’re working with Bail, with Mon. He’ll understand if it comes from you. He wants the same thing, after all. To save the Republic. To save our future - together._

The words stuck in her throat, arthritic fingers of vowels and consonants caught in _thirr-bird’s_ nests of varices and cartilage. 

“I have to go, Anakin.” She pulled on a voluminous robe, cascades of emerald velvet a hasty veil thrown over an emerging, inconvenient truth.

Padmé set a hand on the counter of her dresser, waiting for the room to stop spinning, for the pieces of broken reality to settle once into their misshapen containers.

It was the third time this week she had worn this robe.

Bail would cover for her. Their work was too important to the future of the Republic. 

To the future of what she carried with her.

“If you don’t tell them, I will,” she heard Anakin call through the closing doors.

_ If you tell them, what future would that bring? _

**III.**

**BD 17, 13:45 Postmeridian**

_(Extract: The Galactic Republic and the Grand Army of the Republic vs. The Jedi Order)_

JEDI MASTER WINDU: As I have stated before, there was ample evidence that Chancellor Palpatine was indeed a Sith Lord. You have heard the testimony from my colleagues on the Jedi Council, have inspected the Chancellor’s Office yourselves, and discovered what your experts described as odd and esoteric artifacts. 

THE COURT: Jedi Master Windu, as far as I am aware, having a deviant taste in artwork is hardly a criminal offense, no less one that can prove without reasonable doubt that the Chancellor of the Republic is a Sith Lord.

JEDI MASTER WINDU: It is if that same artwork consists of Sith relics - 

THE COURT: Enough, Master Windu. Frankly, I expected the head of the Jedi Council to come prepared with a far less flimsy defense for political assassination than claims of a corrupted holovid and a few pieces of esoteric sculpture. The fact remains that we have video evidence of your murder of the head of the Republic, testimony from Knight Skywalker that you and certain members of the Jedi Council were discussing a coup attempt, and plenty of other evidence of the Council’s willful disregard for the authority of the Republic - 

JEDI MASTER WINDU: Anecdotal evidence. Controversy cooked up by a polarized holopress and extremist protest groups funded by the CIS. Did we not agree to the trial of Padawan Ahsoka Tano who was later exonerated? Did we not place ourselves under the authority of the Republic Senate in managing this war? Have we not accounted for every credit spent both in and without the Temple? Defended the planets you represent with our blood? Fed your younglings, tilled your fields, brokered trade deals - all for the good of the Republic?

THE COURT: And have you not also openly engaged in the forced abduction of children you consider to be “Force-sensitive”? Initiated them into your religious cult? Operated a paramilitary arm to enforce your own laws and conduct on planets such as Onderon? Attempted to interfere with a legitimate government on Mandalore not once, but on two separate occasions?

JEDI MASTER KENOBI: If I may, Your Honor, the weight of guilt as it pertains to Mandalore, and, to a certain extent, Onderon, falls squarely on me. Punish me as you see fit for those transgressions, but know I acted alone and in opposition to the Council in both those decisions. I beseech you to overlook those two incidents in your equation as to the Jedi Council’s - and the Order’s - overall fealty to the Republic. That damage is mine and mine alone.

THE COURT: That damage, as you say, is a symptom of a greater disease, Master Kenobi. A disease that has now infected the entirety of the Republic. The war effort is in shambles, Count Dooku unaccounted for since the Battle of Coruscant, a Republic Leader dead by your Council’s blade. Senator Amidala of Naboo remains missing as does Knight Skywalker. I dare not speculate on their fates but if the Jedi Order is prepared to execute a head of state in broad daylight, I shudder to think of what has become of Amidala and Skywalker.

JEDI MASTER KENOBI: Your Honor - 

JEDI MASTER WINDU: Sit down, Obi-wan. 

JEDI MASTER KENOBI: I…very well.

THE COURT: For three years now, we have heard rumors, speculation, and oblique reference to these mysterious Sith. An ancient evil come to rise up against the Jedi, an evil - quite conveniently - that can only be defeated by said Jedi. While the Court and the Republic may agree Count Dooku is a traitor and war criminal, there is no evidence that he is one these so-called Sith. He is, in fact, a Jedi gone rogue - the first, perhaps, the most infamous, to be certain. In light of recent events, he is certainly not the last, and it seems the Sith are no more than a convenient bogey-man for the Jedi Order. A contrived fear, an invisible enemy created for the sole purpose of the acquisition of power, for the Jedi to divorce themselves from the Republic after sucking its last resources from our wrinkled, dried teat. That the Order was caught red-handed only speaks to its hubris, to its utter disregard for the structures and government that have shepherded the beings of this Republic for thousands of years.

In light of these rank transgressions and to honor our wartime struggles and losses in the fight the rebel Confederacy and the Jedi traitor Dooku, we turn over the future of the Jedi Order to the Grand Army of the Republic, represented by Admirals Tarkin and Yularen, who will conduct the formal sentencing trial and determine the fate of the Jedi Order.

Court adjourned.

_(end transcript)_

**IV.**

**TD 20, 11:30 Antemeridian**

_Coruscant Street Talk_

“I mean - we all knew, right? That’s what the Party for Superior Sentients has been saying all along. Your biased government media painted us all as quacks, as dumb, illiterate Rim-folk transported in from some backwater _garnat_ field or one-diamond space station. Didn’t believe us, no, not until you had the proof. But _we_ had the proof all along! We told everyone - the Jedi are a secret cabal in cahoots with certain members of the Senate. They’re child abductors! Worse than that. If you’ve been to Dex’s Diner down in CoCo Town, you’d know. Child slavery, sending the rejects out to farms. And if they’re not afraid to send ‘em to farms, well - I don’t want to say in polite company, but you know what those kind of perverts get up to. Everyone knows, but no one is brave enough to _say it._ Well, I am! And so is the Party of Superior Sentients. And I’m not afraid to say this, too. The Jedi are getting off _easy._ Tarkin, he’s a soft-heart. If I were in charge, I know what the sentence would be. Won’t stop me from tuning in tonight, though. Oh no. Gonna crack open some Jawa Juices and have us a real celebration.”

—-Enpam “Boss” Grongum, leader of the Party for Superior Sentients

“I think it’s all just such a shame, really. They seemed so nice, like they really cared. I wanted to believe them, but now with that awful video and - well, Admiral Tarkin and Admiral Yularen are the take-charge types, you know? I feel like I can relate to them, being Human and all. The Jedi - sure they’ve got some Humans, but look at that Council of theirs. The little toad who runs things, that Kel Dor - I mean, they can’t even breathe oxygen what are they doing on this planet? They should go home. Taking jobs from hard-working Humans like us. It’s hard enough out there, and then they gotta ship all these aliens in. What about my family? What about my paycheck? Aren’t enough credits to go around. Kenobi seemed nice enough, though. Handsome devil, too. Damned shame what they’re going to do with him. Oh well, I suppose that’s what you get for working with aliens. Am I going to watch? Oh no, no. My favorite holodrama is on then. Besides, I don’t like violence.”

—-Lim Intol, Sentient Resources Manager at Docar Inc.

“The problem is the Jedi didn’t go _far_ enough. Palpatine was a rat, anybody with half a brain could see that much. But the Senate was too busy sucking off the credit pipe to care. I mean, yeah, Dooku’s bantha shit but the old man had a point. Hope he’s still kicking it out there somewhere. _He_ wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power. The Jedi? Eh, too little, too late. It ain’t illegal if you don’t get caught, and damn, did they get caught. I mean, it’s only a handful, right? But this is supposed to be a humane government and look what we’ve come to. I tell you this much. Tarkin and his little pet Yularen have it coming. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even in a year, but it’s coming. The Jedi _karked_ it up, but the next generation won’t be so indoctrinated. My name? _Kriff off_ , bantha-pad.”

—-Anonymous, Level 98

“GWARR, GRR, GWRAAAAAARRRRR.”

_[“A heavy grief breaks our boughs.”]_

—-Fenshook of Kashyyyk, translated by Gem Floris, Doctor of Wookiee Studies and Professor of Mid Rim Economics at the University of Coruscant

**V.**

**TD 15, 03:30 Antemeridian**

CT-3756: Thousand Fountains secured, sir. Awaiting orders.

CC-2986: Any resistance?

CT-3756: No, sir. Site is full of…

[sobbing noises]

CC-2986: CT-3756, are you there?

[more sobbing noises]

CC-2986: CT-3756 -

CT-3756: Yes, sir. Apologies, sir. Thous—-uh…Sector 24 occupied by younglings. No resistance offered.

CC-2986: Yes, well…[static] Good. Occupants are secure?

CT-3756: Affirmative.

[static]

[continued sobbing noises]

CT-3756: Sir? If I may…

CC-2986: You may not, soldier. You have your orders. Over and out.

###

CT-6567: No sign of Skywalker.

Command: Are you certain, CT-6567?

CT-6567: Affirmative. Am standing by with two high-level hostiles. 

Command: Any resistance?

CT-6567: Negative, Command. Scene secure, hostiles in custody. Awaiting transport.

Command: Copy, CT-6557. Re-establish contact when hostiles delivered.

CT-6567: Acknowledged, Command. Re-establish contact when hostiles delivered. CT-6567 over and out.

###

CC-9746: I don’t understand why we have to - _Haar’chak!_ Fall back! Fall _back_!

CT-1178: CC-9746, come in!

[sounds of blaster fire, explosives]

CT-1178: CC9746, come in!

[static]

CT-1178: Command, requesting back-up in Sector 12. 

Command: Copy, CT-1178. Request confirmed. Sector 12, Jedi Archives. Reinforcements en route.

###

CC-2224: Sir, please don’t resist. 

JMK: Why shouldn’t I, Cody?

CC-2224: The rest of the Council, they’ve already surrendered.

JMK: Good for them.

CC-2224: You murdered the Chancellor. Betrayed the Republic.

JMK: Personally, I had no hand in that. But do you not think that if they did, if _I_ did - that it might be for a very good reason? What of our trust, Cody? 

CC-2224: Sir, please. I have my orders.

JMK: [laughter] Then do what you must. 

CC-2224: Sir -

[lightsaber noises]

CC-2224: _Sir._

JMK: _Do what you must, Cody._ As will I.

CC-2224: [whisper] _Gaa’taylir ori’vodcyare’ner._

[lightsaber noises]

CC-2224: Open fire!

[blaster sounds]

**VI.**

**PD, 18, 08:30 Antemeridian**

“…with the sentencing trial taking place tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned for further analysis -“

_Click._

“Our sources report a meeting between Grand Jedi Master Yoda and Admiral - “

_Click._

“The Jedi are baby-snatchers! Sorcerers! I’ll tell you this much. _I_ won’t be giving up my child to some mind-controlling heathens. Not while I have my blaster at my side - “

_Click._

“Not curious what your former co-workers have to say about themselves?” Bo-Katan raised an arched eyebrow over her spoonful of _Ghoderrn_ Sludge, her lip curling as she slurped at the tasteless, steaming gruel.

“I’m pretty sure I know the script at this point,” Ahsoka muttered, stabbing her fork at a sorry presentation of _malut-_ sausage and leaf-stalk.

Limbs of meat sprayed with the bottom-of-the-bottle vestiges of Concodrian fire-sauce, a last-ditch effort by the former members of Death Watch to welcome the ex-Jedi - the _informant_ \- into their fold.

She knew all too well why the so-called red carpet had been rolled out for her. Maul was in custody, trussed up in that abomination they called a _sarcophagus_ , as if they had excavated some ancient relic and not imprisoned a Force-sensitive in a specially-designed barbaric chamber. No matter how odious Maul may have been, no matter how much he deserved to suffer, Ahsoka knew it was a fine line separating the Sith being strapped to that gurney and _her_ taking his place.

Especially now.

“Hm,” Bo-Katan smiled around her spoon, licking the last crimson-flecks of Sludge before speaking again “So now what?” She pointed at Ahsoka with the bloody implement, a too-familiar hawk-like grin playing at her features. “Take Maul back to Coruscant? Clear the names of your betrayers?”

Ahsoka considered the patterns of Concordian fire-sauce on her sausage. Random and chaotic, as if her meat had been speared right on her plate, wounds bleeding, impervious to stitches, to healing of any kind.

She pushed away her breakfast. Her own wounds still seeped, still throbbed in the dead of the night, when she woke with the ghost of her Master’s name on her lips.

Her spilt blood craved vengeance.

But so did the blood of so many others. 

A year ago, she would have gone back to prove a point. 

Now?

She reached out out with her fork, spearing a cold sausage, grimacing at the congealed fat running between her teeth.

_Fool me once, that’s on thee. Fool me twice -_

“No,” she replied, swallowing the rest of her meat over the lump in her throat. “I martyred myself for the Jedi once. I’m not keen on doing it again. You have Maul. Taking Mandalore from the clones when Coruscant is in such upheaval shouldn’t be difficult.”

Ahsoka chewed.

“That’s what you wanted, right? Mandalore? You’ve got it now. The only thing I ask for in return is the favor - the mercy of secrecy.”

Bo-Katan fixed her with a blank stare. Several moments later she chuckled, if her single hiccup of alien amusement could be called such a thing.

“It’s too bad,” she drawled, gathering their plates as she stood. “You could have been a powerful ally.”

_A powerful tool_ , Ahsoka thought with no little malice. _Fool me twice, that’s on me._

“Where will you go?” Bo-Katan asked, her indifference to whatever Ahsoka's would be response flattening her inquiry into a statement blander than last night's _haar_ -bread.

Ahsoka tilted her head, staring past the grim duracrete walls of the temporary base.

“Somewhere far, far away.”

**VII.**

**CD 14, 23:45 Postmeridian**

You remember that first time you fell. You remember the rush of exhilaration, the wind, the resistance combing through your hair, your robes flapping as you greeted the inevitability of the ground with the open, enthusiastic arms of youth. You were not pushed, you leapt from the parapet, an exultation, a hosanna writ in death. Not physical death, of course. You were too young for that, too invincible, too powerful. The suicide of the ego, _in dramatis flagrante_ \- you were never one for a slow, creeping death, were you?

Falling, falling, falling again. 

It is said that one cannot teach an old _akk_ -dog new tricks. You take offense at this staid aphorism, of course. Each leap, each self-inflicted wound, every scar from that hideous _thud_ , that impact with the ground; a ground whose end is further and further away each time, your falls now reaching near-terminal velocity if there was such a thing. (You laugh, the warm metallic liquid bubbling on your lips. You are not dead yet, you begin the doubt it is even a possibility.)

Your body is an invisible atlas of knowledge gained through each descent.

This _,_ however, you think as you survey your rotten kingdom, your citadels of refuse, your gleaming lakes and rivers of piss and vomit and blood. _This_ you believed to be the final plunge, a deep dive into the inky black sea of betrayal, where the tendrils of that ancient leviathan - your inane gullibility, your hubris, your blind eyes plucked out by sharpened talons of what lives in those forgotten shadows, those primordial vents.

Always, you have been the cause of your own descent, the beginning, middle, and end, but never so than in this moment, you the snake, gagging on your own tail, rolling down, down, down.

Never has your descent been so literal. Crashing to the earth, through the earth, down a shaft, plummeting level after level, forever, it seemed, until you hit solid earth, ribs breaking, skin stretched sallow beyond even your ancient years, your hands - your _hand_ , that is - smiling back at you through the gaping, jagged avulsion. 

Say cheese for the holocamera, young one, this new scar, this new knowledge gained in pain, only another entry for your atlas, brimming to the brink.

But will be no second volume. Of that, you are certain.

You think you cannot fall further, but you are wrong, huddled as you are in that dark crevice, that filth-stained wall your throne, the rusted exterior of a dumpster your desk. You shake, you cannot help it, your blood run dry on the stage of ignorance and treachery, a play in which you lost your lines, doomed to be a marionette at the beck and call of the other, to the laughter of the audience, until they cut your strings, _snip, snip, snip._

And you fall, fall, fall, fall.

Old man, they call to you, these boorish beings, swaying in the recycled, putrid breeze of a cave that has never seen the light of day, their pupils wide with cheap alcohol and cheaper spice sticks. 

You think you cannot fall further, but you are proven wrong again, cheek split open, shin cracked, your eyes bleary and misshapen. They can do what they want, they cheer. No one is coming down this far, not on these levels. Not when the sorcerers are locked away in their tower, the flesh-and-bone droid army stationed at every street corner, every office, every transit station a hundred levels up. 

Fall far enough, they say, and you don’t worry about the long arm of the law, they laugh, punctuating their empty, drunken victory with a final kick in your ribs.

You smile, a crooked, ugly thing. You can teach an _akk_ -dog new tricks, but sometimes it is the old tricks - the reliables, the basic grammar, the rudimentary studies - that are the best.

The credit fob shines strangely in the neon light of the cantina.

You muster what strength you can, crawling into your nylon-and-plastiwood cocoon. You hunch over the scarred table, fingers sticky on the surface, your breaths coming in great, large gulps. You can taste the liquor, depravity, and desperation in the air, you feed off the avarice, the lust, the million and one wicked things you know how to feast on, to leech, to consume. 

That, too, was a trick learned by the old _akk_ -dog.

It is not enough. You hail a droid server, offer them your credit fob. What is this worth?

You know the droid is engineered to take your money, to offer the least amount possible at the highest price, gold for scraps.

You do not care. You know this arithmetic already, the formulas are engraved in your bones, in the last twenty years of your existence, hidden in that atlas, that map of pain and pride and fall.

And yet you still live.

The droid totters back with a vile concoction. Sorry, no change, enjoy your drink.

You don’t argue, draining the dirty glass in one go, enjoying the heady spin, the way the lights dance as the alcohol runs through your tired veins and you think this might not be the worst place to fall, fall, fall again. 

You smile, a real smile, brought from some hidden joy long-ago forgotten. X marks the spot, a treasure unearthed and yes, perhaps you will drop, descend one last time.

The holonet flickers in the corner of your eye. You turn, watching an all-too-familiar pantheon of faces, headlines blaring in bright, neon Aurebesh a truth you cannot bring yourself to believe, and yet there is is, in all its garish glory.

You realize the old _akk_ -dog still has one more trick left to learn.

After all, gravity can be reversed.

And falling upwards is still falling. 

**VIII.**

**PD 16, 16:30 Postmeridian**

_Interrogation 16-16-TF4-Y_

A.Y.: One more time, from the top, if you will. Please recount the events up to and including the assassination of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, Taunsgday 15.

[slams desk]

A.Y: We’ve warned you both, numerous times now, regarding secret communications during an interrogation.

S.T.: Hand language is hardly what one would call a secret code, Admiral. Master Fisto is suffering from massive trauma to both his primary and secondary auditory systems. Full-thickness burns to over sixty percent of his tentacle region.

A.Y.: Yes, we have the healer’s reports. One eye blinded, full amputation of the right hand, smoke inhalation injuries. Seems like you got off easy in comparison.

S.T.: No one is getting off easy, as you say, Admiral. Not in this situation.

A.Y.: No, I imagine not. And yet, if you would come clean about your mechanism of injury, much of this unpleasantness might be avoided. Master Fisto can get some much-needed rest and perhaps the Tribunal will be motivated to offer you some modicum of leniency when it comes to your sentencing. 

S.T.: Perhaps a cell with a view? [chuckles] No. As I’ve - as _we’ve_ said earlier, our injuries are the product of lightsaber combat and an explosive electrical energy source known to us as “Sith lightning.” The same explosive energy source that has conveniently corrupted the surveillance video which would exonerate the Jedi of all false charges.

A.Y.: You executed a head of state. Carried out extra-judicial murder. Attempted a coup. We have the video evidence. The entire Republic has the video evidence.

S.T.: We neutralized a known Sith threat and would have temporarily supported the governance of the Republic until the war was ended and the situation stabilized.

A.Y.: You have no proof of this outlandish claim that Chancellor Palpatine was a Sith and yet you and your colleagues stubbornly cling to this notion. You’re only making this worse for yourselves. Already, the holopress is declaring the Council a band of “extremist religious zealots” who very nearly brought down the entire Republic in their internecine conflict with an excommunicated terrorist.

S.T.: Well-worded. The data pads have certainly been working overtime to throw the Council off the proverbial tower.

A.Y.: Let us return to more tangible matters, then, if we cannot agree on politics. Your injuries _are_ consistent with lightsaber burns, according to our med-droids, and Master Fisto’s burn patterns do match those found in other high-damage electrical burn victims. What we believe you are omitting, however, is not that Chancellor Palpatine inflicted these wounds but that General Skywalker did, in a heroic, last-ditch attempt to put a stop to your insurrection.

A.Y.: Our security footage shows General Skywalker sprinting towards the Chancellor’s office at 20:01 postermeridian, minutes after you, Master Fisto, and Master Windu invaded the Executive Office. While the footage from 20:04 to 20:13 is corrupted, does it not seem more likely that General Skywalker entered the office, knowing the Jedi were considering taking action against the Chancellor, and then engaged you three, delivering massive injuries to Master Fisto and yourself before Master Windu defenestrated him?

S.T.: An inventive fiction, Admiral. You place a heavy amount of faith in young Skywalker’s abilities.

A.Y.: As did your Council. We checked your records after the occupation of the Temple. Was he not some form of Chosen One, according to your mystical beliefs? Bound to bring balance to the so-called Force?

S.T.: If he has brought balance, then I am not at liberty to say at this moment. [clanking sounds] You have us well-neutered, Admiral. Even the Council wan’t aware of the large repository of Force-suppressing restraints the GAR had been stockpiling.

A.Y.: By design. The Council also wasn’t aware Republic Intelligence had been tipped off to this very possibility over a year ago. And our stockpile will still need to be replenished if this trial is to drag on any longer. Your younger colleague has been quite insistent on testing every aspect of our security measures.

S.T.: Recent events have left him…unbalanced.

A.Y.: Guilt is a funny thing, isn’t it, Master Tiin?

S.T.: Indeed it is, Admiral.

###

_Interrogation 16-16-W5-Y_

A.Y.: [inaudible] Do you deny this, Master Windu?

M.W.: Not at all. But I quibble with your choice of words. This was not a coup, nor a Jedi insurrection. My actions can not be qualified as murder, assassination, or any other pejorative term you and the Holopress feel the need to sling at the Council Towers.

A.Y.: If not murder, Master Windu, if not killing, if not your lightsaber through the Chancellor’s heart - then what?

M.W.: Justice. 

A.Y.: You killed the Chancellor of the Republic. 

M.W.: I defeated the Sith.

A.Y.: [sighs] This is not going to end well for you, Master Windu.

M.W.: It already _has_ ended well, Admiral. The Force remains with me, even in this darkest hour. And I, for one - am content.

###

_Interrogation 16-16-K6-Y_

A.Y.: Master Koon, this is the sixth time we’ve brought you in for interrogation. Six times you come here, and six times you have said nothing. Have you no defense for your actions, your Order?

A.Y.: Silence is complicity, Master Koon. The Thirteenth Charter of the Republic Constitution cannot shield you. You are already convicted of your crimes, why not defend yourself against the worst?

A.Y.: [sighs] Fine. Guards, take him away.

###

_Interrogation 16-16-K7-Y_

A.Y.: It pains me to see you like this, Master Kenobi.

M.K.: Yes, well. It pains me to be trussed up like an Ithorian rooster at suppertime so perhaps we are even on that account.

A.Y.: You brought it upon yourself.

M.K.: As I have many things, I admit. 

A.Y.: Please, Master Kenobi. You are - were - a brilliant military strategist, the best General the Republic had to offer. You worked tirelessly on the front lines to protect our people, our government. Surely you couldn’t believe the Chancellor of the Republic was some kind of…Sith Lord?

M.K.: [chuckles] No, at the time I couldn’t. But he was right all along, you know - laid it out for me on a Minishian-gilded platter. If I knew then, Admiral, oh, if I had only _known_. The corruption of one soul to save everything? I would have cut the strings myself and smiled all the way down.

A.Y.: What are you - let’s get to the topic on hand, Master Kenobi.

M.K.: Oh, but we never left the topic at hand, my dear Admiral.

A.Y.: Master Kenobi, what are you - oh for... [clanking sounds] _Mother of Kwath!_

[more clanking sounds]

A.Y.: _Guards!_

###

_Interrogation 16-16-Y8-Y_

A.Y.: Why not run? Why sit here and lead your Council through the proverbial gauntlet? You know where this ends, Master Yoda.

M.Y.: Indeed, I do. But a responsibility to the rest of the Order, I have. To what is left of our younglings. Our future.

A.Y.: There will be no future for the Order. The Senate has already decreed the Jedi a terrorist organization, an existential threat to the Republic’s very existence. 

M.Y.: Our future. Jedi, not-Jedi. The Republic. Intertwined, our fates are. 

A.Y.: There are calls for a purge, Master Yoda. All Force-sensitives are now seen as a threat, all Jedi now classified as enemy combatants.

M.Y.: Then answer your own question, have you. If we run - a terrible future, indeed. More war, more fighting. Hmmm, difficult our position is. Great sacrifices to be made. 

[shuffling]

M.Y.: With Admiral Tarkin, I would like to meet.

A.Y.: Master Yoda, that's not...

[more shuffling]

A.Y.: [huffing] Fine. I’ll make the arrangements. 

**IX.**

**BD 17, 09:30 Antemeridian**

_ From the office of Bail Organa, Senator of Alderaan _

To my esteemed Senate colleagues:

It is with a heavy heart that I announce my resignation, effective immediately, from my post as Representative of Alderaan to the Galactic Republic Senate on Coruscant. My 15 years as a representative of Alderaan have been marked by both great triumph and great tragedy. Together, we have worked to ensure a bright future for our Republic - founding universities, funding small businesses initiatives on the Outer Rim, brokering trade deals to help raise the standard of living for all beings across the galaxy. Together, we have also witnessed the greatest existential threat to our democracy in our memory - the outbreak of the Clone Wars, the rise in piracy and petty crime, and of course, the recent tragic events of Taunsgday 15, for which I have no words to express my sorrow.

It is these events, in part, that have compelled me to take a step back from political life. As is no secret, I was once an ally of the Jedi Order, and counted many of the Council to be stalwart allies in our fight for the future of the Republic. Indeed, I considered one member in particular not only as an ally, but a close friend. 

With the recent trials and public evidence mounting against the Jedi, I feel it to be in both my best interests and the best interests of the people Alderaan that I retire from my role as their representative. A new representative will be appointed by the Council of Ministers until planetary elections can take place. I have every faith my successor will work as tirelessly as I have both for Alderaan and the Republic as we enter this new chapter in Galactic history. 

I will be returning to Alderaan to support Queen Breha in her administration and begin my own philanthropic efforts on-planet. We respectfully ask for privacy during this time of transition and new beginnings. 

_"Hope is like the sun: if you only believe in it when you see it, you'll never make it through the night.” — Yimal Rus-Qu’ll, poet of old Alderaan_

Yours now and in the future,

Bail Organa

**X.**

**CD 19, 08:30 Antemeridian**

“No!” The gimmer stick smacked the hollow floor of the Republic Interrogation and Containment Center. _Thwack, thwack, thwack._

“I hardly think you are in a position to bargain, Master Yoda,” Tarkin replied, the shadow of a death-grin looming in his words. 

_This is almost too much to watch_ , CT-3798 thought, readjusting his grip on the DC-15A blaster rifle. It was a heavy piece of machinery, but accurate, if one was trained well-enough. Most importantly, though - at least to the Republic _alor_ \- it had an adjustable stun setting.

“Shoot to stun, _not_ kill.” 

Those were his orders. And good soldiers followed orders.

Even when they didn't make any sense.

CT-3798 shook his head. It had been like trapping weasels in a transpristeel cage. It was cruel, almost, the way the military bigwigs had been playing with the Order, dragging them into this tin can, one by one, dangling false promises of an impossible redemption. 

He had seen the videos. They all had.

Traitors to the Republic. All of them. 

So why order the blasters set on stun?

“Disagree, I do,” the little toad croaked, brandishing his stick once more, his thin, arthritic joints jangling like Life Day ornaments with the motion.

“Your life is forfeit, Master Yoda.” 

“Known that since the beginning, have I,” Yoda retorted. Even shackled head-to-toe in every Force-suppressing restraint the GAR could muster, the diminutive Jedi Master was the absolute picture of control, of poise.

Tarkin frowned. “Then for what _do_ you wish to bargain, if not your life? That of your friends on the Council? They’re as complicit as you, Master Yoda.”

Yoda shook his head, the overly-large collar shifting with his movements. 

“No. The Council _is_ the Jedi, Admiral Tarkin. What hurts the Jedi as a whole receive, the Council does. What punishments, the Council. What glories, the Council. What dark fate?” Yoda closed his eyes, claws gripping the top of gimmer stick. 

_Thwack._

“You wish to spare the others,” Tarkin said.

“Wish, I do, a chance to give them.” Yoda closed his eyes. “Almost 900 years, Admiral Tarkin, I have lived. Know, I do, you will not uphold any bargain, any compromise you offer.”

“Then why bargain at all?”

“As you said, my life is forfeit.”

“No one will know of this conversation.”

Yoda giggled. “The truth. Strange it is. Like a Phyllum-worm. Always, it finds a way.”

“The sentence is set to be announced tonight.”

"Delay then, a few hours. A day, if you might. While our fates, cast in _neuranium_ they are _,_ have been, for quite some time - “ Yoda turned his gaze to the one-way mirror. It was impossible, but CT-3798 could swear the old toad looked directly at him. The clone shivered, fingering the trigger of his blaster. Those Force suppressants were supposed to _work_ , _shab_ it all!

A ghost of a smile passed over the crinkled Jedi Master's face. Or, at least, that's what CT-3798 thought he saw. Thought he wanted to see. Didn't want to see. _Haar'chak_ , these Jedi. The sooner this was over with, the sooner he could drown himself in the nearest bottle of _tik'aar._ Clones weren't supposed to play politics, weren't supposed to even _think_ about politics, not then, not now, not ever, and especially when the line between enemy and ally was becoming more and more blurred.

“A unilateral decision," Yoda turned back to the Admiral, who was tapping his fingers on the shiny metal desk, "I cannot make. With the rest of the Council, I must confer.”

Tarkin curled his lip. “Very well. If you Council deems it necessary to engage in such theater, if it will, at the very least, help bring your Master Kenobi to heel…Then yes, I suppose a short delay could be allowed.”

“The gratitude of the Council, you have.”

_Thwack._

**XI.**

**CD 20, 00:00 Antemeridian**

“Your thoughts?” 

It was a dour scene. The Council gathered, not in their high tower, overlooking the Republic, the citizens, the Jedi. No, this was a cheap facsimile in an aluminum can. The lights of Coruscant swapped for the interrogatory irises of captivity, cushioned seats for the barely-comforting chill of the hard, detention-level floor. The greatest heights of Coruscant brought to the lowest depths of the capital. 

“They won’t honor the agreement,” Obi-wan Kenobi rumbled from a dark corner, limbs lit in neon like a seedy Underlevel bar. Twelve attempts so far, too close to success for the GAR’s comfort. As a last resort, they had implanted a detonation chip in rogue Jedi’s neck.

No one truly believed it would hold. Not in the long-term.

“No, Obi-wan. That, they will not,” Yoda answered. “An alternative, you have?”

The younger Jedi strode forward from the shadows, once-sandy tunics now a poisoned citrus of chemicals and decay. “Fight them, fight _this_ ,” he swung his hand around the grey cell. “They accuse us of violent insurrection, of murder and treason - what do we have left to lose?”

_Thwack!_

The smack of wood on cheap metal sent aftershocks through the room.

“Become our enemies, shall we?” Yoda’s voice rose with an uncharacteristic causticness, his mouth rimmed with invisible scars. “Follow in Dooku’s path? Tear down all we have built?”

“There is little left of what we have built,” Obi-wan bit back.

“And yet, always the seeds, always the germination, always the future, in motion. For what we have built, correct you are, Obi-wan. Nothing left for us, is there. Only fallow soil. But shall you tear down the foundations, raze the grounds of what may grow five years from now? Ten? Twenty? Such a sage, a seer, as your Master was, you must be, to know the future to be as such.”

The younger Jedi hissed in response, pulling back his hand as if he had touched a searing oven-plate.

“Are you afraid, Obi-wan to give your life for the Republic, the Jedi?” Mace Windu asked, opening his hands. "I ask not to condemn you. It's only natural."

“I nearly gave my life a hundred times over for the Republic in the last three years alone. For the Jedi?” Obi-wan raised both eyebrows. “I am prepared to do so a hundred-thousand times over. More, perhaps. But to acquiesce to a convenient _lie_ , to throw away - “

_Thwack!_

“A lie it is, Obi-wan. A lie that nonetheless will keep the candle of the Jedi aflame. The light of righteousness, of democracy.”

“A light that will be snuffed out soon enough.”

“And so you turn to the darkness instead?”

“No, I - “

“Win, we _cannot._ Turn to the light, we can. Turn to it, because - “

“Because it is the light,” Obi-wan finished with a long sigh. “So tied to tradition, are we?”

“Is this not when we should most cherish our traditions? Our values? When we offer ourselves to the Force, bared and naked? Look at yourself, Obi-wan. You cannot win this battle. Will you meet the Force in chains? Meet your Master bound as you are?”

What little color remained in Obi-wan's face drained completely.

“For the future, then, we vote," Mace intoned. "Allow ourselves to be martyred to the Republic for the hope of a better future. So our Padawans and their Padawans can build upon the rubble of our mistakes. Knowing no promise may be upheld, but secure in our faith in the Force. An ending traded for a beginning. An upwards fall.”

Mace surveyed them all, each Council member, each colleague, each _friend_. 

A final decision. _Their_ final decision.

“Are we in agreement, then?”

A suspended breath. And then a claw - Plo Koon, who had not uttered a single word since the death of Palpatine - raised in accordance. Followed soon after by hand after claw after hand. Yoda raised his own feeble limb, furrowing his brows as he looked to the dark corner where Obi-wan coiled.

And slowly, so slowly as to be barely noticed - a black, gloved opened and rose.

“And so it is, and so it will be. May the Force be with us,” Yoda said.

The Jedi Council was to die at sundown.

**XII.**

**TD 20, 20:00 Postmeridian**

**Announcer 1** : Live from Coruscant Public Holonet in Monument Square, this is Ell Byllali.

[intro music]

“Today is…a great day for the Republic. A day for justice. The Jedi Council - those assassins robed in false virtue - are called upon to pay for their heinous crimes against our government, our institutions, our _people_. Never has the Republic been stronger in its resolve, never has it been more united than to see this sentence carried out swiftly, and without remorse.”

[bridge music]

That from Admiral Tarkin. A week after the assassination of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in his office in the Senate, the eleven existing members of the Jedi Council - convicted by the Senate and GAR of political assassination and treason in first-degree - have been condemned to execution by electro-guillotine.

We turn now to CPH correspondent Maya Filloby who is live on-scene.

_“Ell, I’m standing here in Monument Square where a crowd of at least 20,000 sentients have gathered to witness the first public execution of not only war criminals, but members of the Jedi in at least a thousand years.”_

“What’s the mood like in Monument Square?”

_“Tension and celebration. Most of the beings I’ve talked to agree that the Jedi need to pay for their crimes against the Chancellor, citing the much-distributed video of Jedi Master Mace Windu impaling an obviously defenseless Chancellor Palpatine through the heart. But not everyone agrees execution is the best way of dealing with the Jedi.”_

_[“You can't kill one, you have to kill a thousand. Cut off the Council’s head but how many more have they indoctrinated before this? We won’t be safe until all the Jedi are dealt with.”]_

_[“I don’t know. The death penalty? Maybe. But a public execution? This isn’t the early days of the High Republic. I thought we were better than this. I guess I’m just here to - to witness history, as bad as that seems.”]_

_[“It’s all a sham, you know. Just another piece of government theater making it look like they’re doing the right thing. Probably rounded up from shapeshifters and forced them to take on the forms of the Council. Using aliens to do the Republic’s dirty work. I bet you five hundred credits we see reports of Mace Windu back out there on the front lines in three months. Maybe less!”]_

_“While public opinion remains split as to whether the methods of punishment will do anything for the Republic during this critical time, most agree on this much: the Jedi were allotted too much power, and the Republic paid the price.”_

_“This is Maya Filloby on the ground in Monument Square.”_

_###_

“ _My government was one of the first to identify the threat of the Jedi - “_

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to interrupt you there, Senator, as the Coruscant Red Guard has just come on to Monument Plaza, rolling out a large - perhaps four-story-high - electro-guillotine to the increasing cheers of the gathered crowd.”

“And...and yes, here comes Mas Amedda, Interim Chancellor of the Republic, flanked by a phalanx of Red Guards and clone troopers.”

###

_“Citizens! Last week, we, the Republic, suffered a grave injustice, a massive blow at the heart of our great government. Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine - defender of democracy, stalwart ally of the Grand Army of the Republic, and decorated political hero - was slain dead by members of the Jedi Council in an attempted power-grab - a coup seeking to assert Jedi extremist religious authority over our democratic, secular institutions.”_

_“For too long have the Jedi been allowed free rein in our Senate halls, in our education systems, in the foundations of our very families. All in the name of religious freedom, in the supposed protection of our great state. All paid for with the lives of our children, our friends, our husbands, and wives, and life-partners.”_

_“No more will the Republic tolerate this subjugation. No more will it allow the Jedi to carry out its extra-legal will within the confines of the Republic.”_

_“The Council has been found guilty on all counts of treason, first-degree murder, and political assassination. The penalty for this is death.”_

_“We do not gather here tonight to gloat, nor to the laugh at the fall of a once-great institution. We gather here to honor the already-dead - the too-soons, the if-onlys, the what-have-beens cut short by the nearsightedness of the Jedi and their incompetent leadership.”_

_“From this day forward, from the first fall of the blade - the Jedi are no more, relegated to our history holos, to the mistakes from which we shall learn in order to pave the way for a greater and better Republic.”_

_“Guards! Commence the execution.”_

_###_

The crowd cheers and the first victim stumbles down the long walkway.

Agen Kolar.

Zabrak.

Son of Coruscant, soul of Iridonia. 

He sings, in tandem with his brethren, the long-forgotten hymn of the Jedi. 

> ** _We are one with the Force_**

Made to pay for the sins of the brothers he never knew.

> **_And the Force is with us -_**

_THWACK!_

The crowd cheers again.

Coleman Kcaj of Skustell.

The taunts grow louder. 

He strides along the crimson walkway.

“Present” more than present, a shadow of non-culpability on a body impervious to neutrality.

He moans, pleading with his long-lost siblings.

> **_Our lives, our thoughts, our crude matter._**

_THWACK!_

The crowd cheers.

Two down, nine to go.

Stass Allie. 

The crowd murmurs. Who is she? What are her crimes?

It matters not. She is a Jedi, a Councillor, a false substitute for the woman slain before her.

She makes a gesture of peace, ever the healer.

The crowd boos.

> **_It is to the Force we beseech,_**

_THWACK!_

The pace quickens - the inexorable march to death, the inertia excited by the downward to oblivion, that dark, hungry chaos.

Saesee Tiin, limping forward to his sorry end.

No Padawan, no legacy to draw strength from - 

> **_And to the Force we exile_**

_THWACK!_

Kit Fisto, burned and mangled

Nautolan lost on land, swimming upstream to his final nest

Unable to hear the crowd’s jeers -

He smiles that crooked smile 

One last time.

“Sleep, all life is a dream,” he says, winking at the crowd

The words playing on empty lips.

> **_Emotion, ignorance, and chaos_**

_THWACK!_

The throngs swell, they smell blood, tasting it in their very throats. They groan for its spillage, crimson layered on visceral crimson, speared meat lain askew atop that forsaken pedestal.

Ki-Adi Mundi appears. 

Tall, patrician, indisputably alien.

He fumbles down the walkway, one foot in, one foot out - 

Just as he has all those years -

His children, his wives, his _legacy_

What will they say?

What will they remember?

> **_Darkness released, into the Light._**

_THWACK!_

The cheers fall to an awkward diminuendo of confusion.

Plo Koon, monk of silence, perhaps already dead, fallen into the _anya-seff_ meditation of his people.

They have never seen a Kel Dor without their mask, perhaps never will again. 

What is this monstrosity, they whisper? What is it, does it feel, does it hurt, does it _know_?

He pauses at the base of the stairs, curling his right fist inside his left palm, pointer finger stretched upward to the heavens.

> **_With peace, serenity, harmony_**

_THWACK!_

She no more walks than glides down the rampway, Shaak Ti, mother of clones.

In the distance, a thousand rifles come to salute.

She smiles, making the sign of peace. 

A thousand rifles discharge as she glides forward once again.

> **_It gazes, its mercy upon us_**

_THWACK!_

The crowd begins to yell, to jeer. Bottles, glasses, whatever detritus at hand falls in a maelstrom of rage.

Mace Windu holds his head high.

If this is how the Order shall survive, written in a contract signed with his blood, at the blade of the guillotine - so be it.

He pauses, opening his arms to the raucous crowd.

“Be not afraid, though I walk through the shadows of the jungle in death, I fear no evil, for the Force is with me, and with it, my comfort, my solace, and my eternal peace.”

> **_And after this, our end -_**

_THWACK!_

Pale, sunken, red-rimmed.

The crowd falls silent.

He staggers forward, the weight of guilt an anvil on his back.

Death holds no comfort, but nor does it engender fear.

It is but an end, a sad end to a sad story of which he should have been a better author.

“I am so sorry, Anakin,” he whispers through the gag.

One step, one painstaking step at a time he rises, and with him, the cold towers of his fate.

Would he be welcomed into the Force? 

Obi-wan Kenobi spares a single look to the sky, tears rolling down his cheeks -

“I’m coming, Qui-gon,” he says to no one.

He steps forward.

> **_\- our new beginning -_**

_THWACK!_

Number eleven, one less than twelve, that last of them lost to mystery, to darkness.

He is a hollow shell, his mirror, his perverted reflection shown to him by the priestesses of the Force. He welcomes the warm embrace of death, his crude, too crude matter falling away to stardust and light.

And yet it is difficult, even now, to move forward, as if all 900 years have been dropped upon him at once - bones creaking, muscles aching, his wizened claws failing him there is a sharp _crack!,_ sending him falling forward, down, down, down - 

“I’ve got you, Master.” Strong fingers grab at his crepital arm. Somewhere in the distance, Yoda registers the gasps, the shouts, the raised blasters of the soldiers.

It matters not. What he sees before him - through bleary, jaundiced eyes -

Dooku.

Child lost, now found.

Yoda blinks. 

Tunics in tatters, bloodied and bruised, looking all of his 82 years of age.

Still a child, still _his_ child.

Dooku’s Force presence comes and goes in crackles, warped and misshaped by the fires of Sith anger, the conflagration burned out, leaving a charred husk, voids quietly covered with a diaphanous skein of purple and golden threads. Yoda does not need to ask what happened - it is all in Dooku’s eyes, that ferocious gold now a muted, sick amber, tiny brown tendrils snaking their way back into those too-knowing pupils.

> **_Its luminous knowledge laid bare,_** Yoda croaks.

Dooku smiles and answers,

> **_For there is no death, there is the Force._**

“Discovered how to fall up, have you, my apprentice?”

He helps Yoda to his feet. “One last trick for the old _akk_ -dog,” he rumbles, taking Yoda’s hand in his own.

Together they walk, down the crimson corridor, their recitation as one.

> **_our serenity, our guide_**
> 
> **_to blessed return, to that from which we came._**

_THWACK! THWACK!_

* * *

_We are one with the Force_

_And the Force, with us -_

_Our lives, our thoughts, our crude matter._

_It is to the Force we beseech,_

_And to the Force we exile_

_Emotion, ignorance, and chaos_

_Darkness released, into the Light._

_With peace, serenity, harmony_

_It gazes, its mercy upon us_

_And after this, our end -_

_\- our new beginning -_

_Its luminous knowledge laid bare_

_For there is no death, there is the Force_

_our serenity, our guide_

_to blessed return, to that from which we came._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swore at myself so much in writing this. Like, I had to take some deep breaths and more than a couple of moments to get that execution scene on paper, not going to lie.
> 
> Phew! I think I'll go back to Broken Ashes now. Unbelievably, it's a far less depressing piece than this one was.
> 
> As always, come hang out with me on Tumblr! [@legobiwan](https://legobiwan.tumblr.com/) (for Star Wars) and [@be-a-snake-stab-your-brother](https://be-a-snake-stab-your-brother.tumblr.com/) (for the God of Mischief)


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